Just a few minutes into the second practice of this abbreviated Maple Leafs training camp, Randy Carlyle blew his whistle, screamed, stopped a drill and raced across to the coaching board on the glass at the MasterCard Centre.

He then began feverishly drawing and shouting, clearly angered by what he had seen on the ice.

“I was upset,” Carlyle said after the practice. And then he apologized, “because it was the coach’s fault.”

Carlyle thought the drill was supposed to be run one way. When the assistant coach had drawn up the play on the board, he drew it the other way. “And I yelled,” he said. “And looked like I was upset. I was upset but when they told me it was his fault, I apologized ... It was the assistant coach who screwed up.”

But that said something about Randy Carlyle, hockey coach. He is not about to suffer fools, whether they play for him or work with him. And he will say he’s sorry — not often, mind you — but he will say it.

He is an attention to detail hockey coach, not free flowing like Pat Quinn, not sarcastic and defensively irresponsible like Ron Wilson. Carlyle sees something wrong and immediately his body language changes, the temperature on the cold rink in Etobicoke heats up, and there is a sense he knows exactly what he wants to accomplish: If only he had the kind of roster that would fit his complex plan.

Carlyle and his staff spent five months planning training camp, all six days of it, compiling a detailed list during the process. What he wanted to accomplish in camp. He says he won’t leave any stone unturned. “That’s the situation we’re in,” he said. “We’ve laid out our expectations.”

He has asked — and will demand — his players be more than ordinary. He can be a hard-ass of a coach, strong, demanding, who won a Stanley Cup partly because it had Hall of Famers like Scott Niedermayer and Chris Pronger on defence but also because it had a checking line that outscored its opponents in all four rounds of the playoffs. He needs his stars or pseudo stars, depending on how you view the Leafs lineup, to play like stars and his roster fillers to be something more than ordinary. And he probably needs a surprise or three. Two days in, he likes what he’s seen. “They have been more than receptive,” he said of his players, but he is realistic. “This is (only) Day 2.”

What Carlyle needs to accomplish with the season opener so close to beginning, training camp almost half way over after two days, is massive. He needs to make his lines, identify his lineup, put in his systems for all three zones, work on special teams, work on forecheck and cycling, as was done on Monday, work on breakouts, defensive zone coverages, regroups and puck placement — something he has already spent detailed time on — and that’s without pre-season games, wasting time on scrimmage or breaking the new rules in place with the new collective bargaining.

It is the coaching equivalent of juggling, trying to keep all the bowling pins in the air, and it’s virtually impossible not to drop some.

He wants more wins at home. The last three seasons, the Leafs won 43% of home games. That’s not acceptable to him — “Any team with success has a strong home record and that’s what we’re pushing for.”

He wants fewer goals against, which will lead to a better record. The Leafs were among the worst in hockey in all four of Wilson’s seasons as coach in the department of goals against and penalty killing. To become a playoff contender, they have to cut half-a-goal a game from their numbers.

How do you do that? Carlyle answers without talking goaltending. He says they have to be a better forechecking team. He says they have to control the puck longer in the offensive zone. The best way to play defence: Have the puck. He wants that football stat — time of possession — to work on his behalf.

And he wants to turn down what he calls the “white noise.” The meaningless sound that surrounds Toronto hockey. Some of it will be naturally muted with Brian Burke and Wilson gone — they had a way of stoking media fires. “We can’t let all of those other noises and distractions affect how we play on the ice ... Those are the things we’re asking of our group.”

He says all this knowing he has goaltenders who are auditioning for their jobs, doesn’t have a real No. 1 defenceman or a real No. 1 centreman, and that his best first-pass defenceman, a must in today’s NHL, happens to be an 18-year-old who should probably be sent back to junior.

He needs a lot of square pegs to fit into round holes. Lots of them.

“Everything is magnified because of the shortness of the season,” said the coach. “All levels of our organization feel there is more pressure to have success. We know that. We welcome it. Now it’s up to us to perform.”

It's all in the details for Maple Leafs coach Randy Carlyle

Coach showing that he's a different type of bench boss

Just a few minutes into the second practice of this abbreviated Maple Leafs training camp, Randy Carlyle blew his whistle, screamed, stopped a drill and raced across to the coaching board on the glass at the MasterCard Centre.

He then began feverishly drawing and shouting, clearly angered by what he had seen on the ice.

“I was upset,” Carlyle said after the practice. And then he apologized, “because it was the coach’s fault.”

Carlyle thought the drill was supposed to be run one way. When the assistant coach had drawn up the play on the board, he drew it the other way. “And I yelled,” he said. “And looked like I was upset. I was upset but when they told me it was his fault, I apologized ... It was the assistant coach who screwed up.”

But that said something about Randy Carlyle, hockey coach. He is not about to suffer fools, whether they play for him or work with him. And he will say he’s sorry — not often, mind you — but he will say it.